By Will BurchfieldFALLS VILLAGE — The Housatonic Valley Regional High School boys basketball team opened up a double-digit halftime lead and then hung on late to defeat Lewis Mills 56-53 at home on Wednesday, Feb. 16. The Mountaineers led by as much as 14 midway through the third quarter, but the Lewis Mills Spartans mounted a furious fourth-quarter rally that left the game in the balance until senior Reilley Lynch sunk two late free throws to seal the victory.While the game ended in dramatic fashion, it started with a much slower tempo. Both the Spartans and the Mountaineers were cold from the field early, their shooting struggles reflected by Lewis Mills’ scant 7-6 lead after the first quarter. But in the opening minutes of the second quarter, the Mountaineers found their stroke, putting together a 7-0 run that turned their one-point deficit into a 13-7 lead. The seven-point run was capped off with a 3-pointer from Corey Christensen, who was a force all game long for the Mountaineers. Christensen recorded a double-double on the night, scoring 23 points on 11 of 18 shooting and bringing down 10 rebounds.Spurred by their seven-point run, Housy shot with marked confidence for the rest of the half, pouring in 28 second-quarter points on the Spartans’ defense. Senior point guard Andrew Hoffman was instrumental in the offensive barrage, driving the lane with tenacity and finding open teammates when under pressure. Hoffman chipped in six points in the second quarter on a number of acrobatic finishes and tallied 10 on the night, along with four assists and five steals.At the defensive end of the floor, the Mountaineers played aggressive team defense, often forcing the Spartans to take low-percentage shots. Housy was efficient on the glass as well, surrendering very few offensive rebounds to keep Spartan possessions to a minimum. The Mountaineers controlled the flow of the game and built up a 34-22 halftime lead.The third quarter followed a similar script as the first with both teams struggling to make baskets. After hanging 25 points in the second quarter, the Mountaineers managed only 12 points in the third, while the offensively frustrated Spartans put up just 11. The Mountaineers were led in the third by the strong play of center Donyell Williams, who scored half of his team’s 12 points. Williams fell just one rebound shy of a double-double on the night, picking up nine boards to go along with his 10 points.Ahead by 13 at the start of the fourth quarter, 46-33, the Mountaineers may have greeted the final eight minutes a bit too nonchalantly. Lewis Mills, sensing an opportunity, opened the fourth quarter with a 6-0 run and cut their deficit to seven points. For the next five minutes, the teams traded baskets, and the Spartans began to score with relative ease. Down 52-45 with under three minutes to play, the visitors put together another 6-0 run and were suddenly down by one with 38 seconds left. After two Hoffman free throws, the Spartans scored again and then quickly fouled Hoffman on the inbound pass. Shooting one-and-one from the line, Hoffman missed the first free throw, and the Spartans grabbed the rebound and took the ball up court with 25 seconds remaining. Fortunately for the Mountaineers, Lewis Mills was unable to finish two opportunities in the paint before Lynch tracked down the game’s final, and most important, rebound.The gym seemed to breath a collective sigh of relief as Lynch converted both of his free throws to clinch the Mountaineers’ 10th win.“It wasn’t pretty,” head coach David Battistoni said after the game. “We let them back in the game late, but fortunately we made some key free throws and managed to hang on.”Of the Mountaineers’ 19 regular season games so far, including their win over Terryville Monday, Feb. 21, 10 have finished with a six-point differential or less. Housy won half of those 10 games, four of them at home.“That’s us,” Battistoni said. “We play close games.”Housy’s record stands at 11-8 overall and 7-1 at home. Battistoni was quick to acknowledge the efforts of the growing fan base. “Fans have really started to show up this year, and it’s really exciting to have,” he said. “It’s something we haven’t had for three years, and I know it inspires the guys, so it’s been fun.”
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Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.
“I was a library kid. I walked to the library after school,” she said.
For Sher, the library is as much about the people as it about the books.
“Part of the job I love so much is that running the library is such a community,” she said.
She treasures the relationships she has built, whether recommending books, celebrating accomplishments or helping patrons through difficult times.
“I am thankful that our community is so supportive of the library, unlike what is happening in some other places where librarians are villainized,” Sher said.
Sher takes pride in the Hunt Library’s reputation for being “open and welcoming to everyone. People come in and see things and get pulled into things they weren’t expecting. Our library is seen as a positive force.”
Sher came to Falls Village after being awarded a fellowship at Adamah Farm, then a program of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. She worked at pickling, in the greenhouse and later in the development office. She also worked as a nanny.
At the same time, “I was in the library all the time,” she recalled. “I’m a voracious reader. The library is where I met a lot of my first friends in Falls Village.”
She became assistant librarian at Hunt and worked in that position for almost a decade before becoming the executive director four years ago.
Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.L. Tomaino
Sher met her husband, Adam, while working at Adamah. They had their wedding there in 2012. He now emcees many events which she co-organizes with the Falls Village Recreation Commission.
Sher and her family live near the library.
“It’s an easy commute,” she said with a smile. “My kids run back and forth. I can go home to walk the dog if I need to.”
“My kids have grown up here.” Her oldest son, Eli, “loves volunteering. He helps with Augustfest and often helps set up chairs for ArtWall gatherings.” Her younger son, Noah, is often at events and was eager to taste cookies at last year’s holiday cookie swap.
When she is not at the library, Sher likes to hike with her family. Bella, their Portuguese water dog, often accompanies them.
Sher enjoys seeking out people to offer events at the library.
“I do a lot of different community programming. It is one of my favorite parts of the job.”
Augustfest, featuring food, music and an auction, is the library’s biggest fundraiser.
“This summer we had a record 152 attendees, which was pretty incredible.”
Yonah Sadeh, a filmmaker from Falls Village, inaugurated the VideoWall this year, Sher explained.
“I’ve known Yonah since he was two. It’s wonderful to work with him as an adult.”
The VideoWall complements the library’s ArtWall, which showcases a new artist each month. Sher praised the ArtWall committee for its work and highlighted December’s popular “12x12 Show,” featuring works by local artists, each measuring 12 by 12 inches and priced at $150.
Sher added that some of the artists who exhibit at the ArtWall offer workshops to students at Kellogg School, next door to the library. In September, artist Danielle Mailer worked with the children. Vincent Inconiglios taught a class last November.
Being next to the school, said Sher, is a great advantage.
“Kids are coming after school, to see friends, work on projects, find a great book. Kids that love the library end up using the library as grownups.”
This past year, in partnership with Adamah, the library and school created a garden, with excess produce made available at The Center on Main.
This year is Sher’s second year participating in the Troutbeck Symposium in Amenia with James King, director of the library at Salisbury School. The Troutbeck Symposium is “a gathering of a year of student historical inquiry across the region” in which students “uncover stories that have been overlooked, forgotten, or never recorded.”
Last year, Sher and King began a project with a group of students researching Irish immigrants in Falls Village, exploring ancestry and creating small magazines about their findings.
They continued this year, visiting St. Patrick’s Catholic Cemetery on Dublin Road, cleaning seven gravestones and even righting one with the help of stonemason and gravestone restoration expert Karl Munson. Paul Kozeazny, a representative of the Catholic archdiocese, helped secure access to the site.
A film documenting their activities will be shown at the symposium in spring 2027.
A full schedule of programs and events, ranging from tech help to ceramic mug-making, can be found on the library’s website.
Despite spending her days surrounded by books, and a busy schedule of programming, Sher still loves to settle in with a book at home.
For more information on library programs and events, visit huntlibrary.org
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Touré was born in northern Mali in 1981. His father, the renowned guitarist Ali Farka Touré, came from a family of soldiers and wanted his son to join the army. The younger Touré studied drums and the calabash and practiced guitar in secret. He earned his father’s blessing to pursue music shortly before Ali died in 2006, and they played two tracks together on Vieux’s debut album.
Touré is known for his deft, polyrhythmic playing, and his songs grow out of riffs that repeat and layer to hypnotic effect. He draws on rock, blues, Latin music and various African traditions. This distinctive blend builds on his father’s work adapting the sonic traditions of Mali’s arid north to the guitar.
Vieux’s album “Mon Pays” (“My Country,” 2013) honored Mali’s culture after Tuareg separatists and extremist groups seized the north in 2012. “Samba” (2017) was recorded before about 50 listeners in Woodstock, New York. In 2022 came “Les Racines” (“The Roots”), a return to his father’s desert blues, and “Ali,” on which he and the trio Khruangbin reworked eight of the elder Touré’s songs.
Touré leads the Ali Farka Touré Foundation, which focuses on cultural and educational work in Mali. Around the anniversary of Ali’s death, it holds a festival in Bamako, Mali’s capital. Bamako has been under blockade for much of the past year, besieged by JNIM, an al-Qaeda affiliate. Against this backdrop, Touré continues to carry the music of Mali to audiences abroad.
At the Nov. 5 concert, Touré’s desert blues will share the bill with Gnawa, the music LanGus plays, which developed in Morocco among West Africans who were brought north across the desert as enslaved people. Gnawa is religious music traditionally performed at all-night healing ceremonies called lila, intended to carry participants into trance.
Samir LanGusProvided
LanGus was born and raised outside Agadir, Morocco, and began learning Gnawa from its masters at age 8. He plays the sintir, a three-stringed bass lute made of wood and camel skin. The player strikes a low string with the thumb to create a deep, resonant pulse. Iron castanets clatter over the sintir’s bass line, and vocalists trade call-and-response refrains.
LanGus infuses the tradition with jazz and improvisation. In New York, he founded the ensemble Innov Gnawa. His first solo album, “Gnawa Love,” came out in February.
Touré and LanGus’s Nov. 5 concert is one of the last public events at Race Brook Lodge, which is for sale and ended full-service operations at the end of 2025. The lodge’s final scheduled event, on Nov. 6, is an evening of Rumi’s poetry with translator and vocalist Haleh Liza Gafori, cellist Isabel Castellvi and ceremonial bard James Bird.
For tickets, visit rblodge.com.
James FitzGerald is a student at Yale Law School, where he focuses on ecological restoration and international environmental cooperation. He splits his time between Lakeville and New Haven.
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